"
"Are you sure of that?" Mr. Waddington asked anxiously.
"Quite sure!" Burton groaned.
"Then we are both of us in it, and that's a fact," Mr. Waddington
affirmed.
Burton looked up.
"About those beans?"
Mr. Waddington thought for some few moments.
"I shall keep five and give you four," he decided. "It is treating you
very generously. I am not obliged to give you any at all, you know. I
am doing it because I am good-natured and because we are in this thing
together. If the worst happens, you can come back to your old place in
the firm. I dare say we shall pull along somehow."
Burton shuddered from head to foot. He saw it all mapped out before
him--the miserable routine of dull, undignified work, the whole
intolerable outlook of that daily life. He covered his face with his
hands to shut out the prospect.
"I couldn't come back!" he muttered "I couldn't!"
"That's all very well," Mr. Waddington objected, "but if this thing
really passes off, you'll be only too glad to. I suppose I shall flirt
with Milly again, and drink beer, give up Ruskin for the Sporting Times,
wear loud clothes, tell most frightful falsehoods when I sell that
terrible furniture and buy another trotting horse to drive out on
Sundays.
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